Mr Austin has been featured on several television shows and is noted for being the first Australian to be voted to the World Board Of Chefs.
He is the founder and principal of Xtreme Chef Consulting and has extensive experience in food manufacturing, hotel culinary operations, restaurant management and operations.
For Mr Austin, who grew up in Echuca, cooking for people in regional towns is what his career is meant to be about.
“I’ve had a fairly solid career of supporting farmers and small communities,” he said.
“I’ve gone out of my way not to do anything in large cities because large cities have a lot of money and resources. Regional areas don’t.”
He said his own humble beginnings were proof of how working with people in regional areas could change lives.
“You can actually make a change in these areas. I’m from these areas, and I’m a guy that’s got no education and pretty limited, if any, parenting apart from my elder brother,” he said.
“I look at what I’ve achieved and if one other young person sees what I’ve achieved and says, you know what, I can do that too because that guy’s nothing special, then I’ve helped. You can actually make a good change in a small town.”
He shares a passion for delivering regionally with another of the evening’s organisers, Kagome chief executive Jason Fritsch.
“Jason is an exceptional human being. Jason doesn’t need to do any of this,” Mr Austin said.
“He could just go along and run his company and be happy with that, but he’s also driven to support farmers and to support the local community. So between the pair of us, I suppose it’s a match made in heaven, or hell, depending on which way you look at it.”
This isn’t the first year ERH has run this fundraiser and Mr Austin was thrilled to be a returning chef.
This year, the evening will raise money for ERH’s mental health and wellbeing initiatives, shedding light on what can often be a silent struggle for people.
“Women are always pegged as being gossips, but what women are actually doing is communicating effectively and if men did more of that they’d probably be better off. We just internalise everything until it’s too late,” Mr Austin said.
“I’ll do everything I can to support Jason (Fritch) and Echuca Regional Health. It’s the right thing to do. I always say that any time they need me, I’ll be there.”
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